Red Hot for Red's

review

In order to get to the restaurant from the Disabled Parking, you have to wheel across a two mall traffic lanes.

Date Visited

April 20, 2012

Comments

That’s “Red Hot” in a good way. Red’s Southern Diner is the first, and we hope not the last, restaurant to actually request an Accessibility Review. They must have known that it was going to come out good.

Red’s is in a strip mall. Which means that all the stores share a common parking lot. I prefer a stand alone restaurant with its own parking lot, but I also prefer gas prices under $1. Like the Stones said, “you can’t always get what you want, but …….. you can get what you need.”

And we got what we needed. There were plenty of Disabled Parking spaces and two were opposite Red’s door. And the really, really good news is that there is no need for a ramp. The entrance to Red’s is level with the parking lot. And no ramp means no curb cut-out. So, “joy to the fishes in the deep, blue sea.”

But now to my pet peeve. In order to get to the restaurant from the Disabled Parking, you have to wheel across a two mall traffic lanes. This mall obviously expects a good deal of traffic because the lanes are directionally marked. Not really a problem on a clear spring afternoon, but at 8:00 some drizzling October night…. well….

I always wonder if I should mention the mall traffic lanes since there are so many malls that have them. And I recognize that they are part of a well designed mall. But things happen. While I was wheeling across the lanes to Red’s, a friend of mine was in a car that was driving thought mall lanes in front of a nearby Walmart. And sure enough, the driver was distracted and had to make a quick stop to avoid hitting a lady in a power chair that was crossing those lane. Things happen.

But that’s the only real negative at Red’s. (And those lanes are not Red’s responsibility.) And the no ramp thing is an offset to the mall traffic lanes. Now, on to the inside.

Like most restaurants, Red’s has two sets of entrance doors. They are both double doors and they are wide. Easy to navigate. And inside there is plenty of room to move around and among the tables. And that actually surprised me. As an old bean counter I know that the more you can seat the more you can serve. So listen up, Red’s, don’t change a thing. The roomy atmosphere is a good, good thing. Had I been with a party of 10, I could have table hopped. Or at least the wheelchair equivalent. In most restaurants I have to sit at the head of a table and sort of “hold court”. If someone wants to talk to me, he has to come to me.

On to the bathroom. It was almost a straight shot from our table to the “outhouses”. There were some stacked chairs in that entrance way that had to be dodged. Not really a problem, but on the way out, I had to play chicken with a waitress. There wasn’t room for her, the chairs and me. I prevailed.

I wish I had some way to reward Red’s for their bathroom. Even though it’s a “one stall fits all”, and even though it had one of those baby changers, there was room. Oh so much room. I could wheel in, roll around and turn around. And the stall door opened in rather than out. In addition to the latch, there was a door handle. And there were THREE grab bars. I’m not sure what kind of gymnastics training is required for that third bar, but it’s there.

Sorry to be redundant, but I have to say it again. There was an inside handle on the stall door!!

A final note. There is a small “trailer booth” at the back. It has a door on the side facing the restaurant that is functioning, but it has a step up. But the real entrance is at the front of the trailer and it has no step. I asked the manager if a wheelchair could fit and he assured me that it could. The “booth” just rests on the restaurant floor.

Red’s advertises as a Family Restaurant. Now we know that even Aunt Maud can wheel in with the folks.
Well done, Red’s.